


you make me merry make me very very happy

by tosca1390



Category: Princess Diaries - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is awkward,” Mia mutters, hiding in a darkened corridor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you make me merry make me very very happy

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Princess Diaries 2. I just. I don't even know.

*

 

Coronations are _awkward_. 

Living coronations? Even worse. 

“This is awkward,” Mia mutters, hiding in a darkened corridor. 

Next to her, Nicholas laughs. “I am finding that is a common feeling when with you.”

She shoots him a _look_ , in the style of her grandmother. She thinks she’s pulled it off, but he just laughs again; she can’t help but melt, smile back. He is infectious that way. 

“I’m just saying. I feel like I should have waited until she was gone – dead, I guess, but that’s a _terrible_ thought,” she rambles, until he leans down and kisses her quiet. 

She shuts her eyes briefly, and she doesn’t want to think about her grandmother, indomitable Clarisse Rinaldi, _dead_ , because that would be awful. But it’s weird, it’s _weird_ , and now she can’t stop thinking about it, what if there’s a coup because the country hates her and wants her grandmother back?

The tiara presses into her temples through the heavy lengths of her hair, and she sighs against Nicholas’s mouth. The ball is a mess of noises and music and the highest nobles in the land and the parliament, all here in the large ballroom, for _her_ She is a queen now; a queen hiding in a dark hallway with her – her boyfriend? her lover? Oh god that sounds _ridiculous_ – 

“Mia,” he murmurs, his gloved hands skimming up her bare arms, past her elbows. The velvet cloak is gone but the press of gilded silk and crinoline remains, and _man_ it’s hard to breathe in this thing. Inlaid corseting is a bitch, but at least it’s not an _actual_ corset. 

“We have to go back,” he says, voice low. It sends shivers up her spine. 

“I know,” she groans, leaning heavily against the cool stone wall. She meets his eyes and wonders if it will always feel this way, full and pressing against her ribcage; she likes the look of her in his eyes. “I just needed a minute.”

“You’ve had five,” he says. 

“Are you always so freaking helpful?” she retorts, wrinkling her nose. 

In answer, he leans in and kisses her. Her eyes fall shut, and she feels the instinctual lift of her heel under the heavy skirts of the dress, and _man_ this is not how she expected this to go at _all_. His mouth is cool and she can feel the smile against hers; her hands fist in his coat lapels. 

“Yes, yes I am,” he murmurs against her lips. 

“Show-off,” she mutters, and he grins, biting her bottom lip in an very unprince-ly manner that she is so, so into.

“Is your heel popping again?” he teases, mouthing at the line of her jaw. 

“Shut up,” she hisses. Her fingers twine in his coat and she leans in, tipping her head just so. 

Of course, the door at the end of the hall swings open, letting in the full sounds and light of the ball and guests. Mia drops her mouth away from his and he steps back just as Lily barrels in, her tall guard friend following behind. Mia smiles, and Lily groans. Her hair is loose around her face, and Mia thinks she looks beautiful. 

“You always pick the best spots,” she mutters. 

“You can have it, Lily. I’m going back in,” Mia says with a laugh, shaking her head. Next to her, Nicholas shakes with laughter. 

The guard drops into a bow. It still freaks Mia out a little bit, how instinctual it is for her staff and the citizens to do so. Lily, of course, just raises an eyebrow; she hammered out a bowing clause in the best friend contract years ago. 

Nicholas holds out his elbow, which Mia takes. She can feel the warmth of his skin through the soft jacket. They walk past Lily and her paramour, and back out into the bright lights and the murmuring crowds. She smiles and nods, her jaw tight with the day’s efforts. The music swells into a waltz; Mia sighs. She can see her grandmother dancing with Joe, crownless and unburdened. They look beautiful, happy; she’s so glad, but still – _still_ – 

“This is awkward,” she says again, softly. 

“It’s rightfully yours,” Nicholas says. “She was only ever waiting for you to be ready.”

“She did it so _well_ though,” she sighs. 

He leads her out into the middle of the floor, smiling. A flush picks up on her cheeks. “Are your feet ready for this?” she teases. 

“I’m wearing reinforced shoes,” he whispers, and she lets out a loud laugh, unqueenly and free. He guides her along the floor, and she keeps her eyes on his, keeping her balance and her focus. The eyes are all fixed on them, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to it. 

“In all seriousness,” he says at last, between the strings and the fluttering of the flute, “you’re ready. And your grandmother isn’t going anyway, so she will be here to help.”

“I know,” she murmurs. Her fingers slide and twine in his. “I just – “

“I will kiss you right here and now if it’ll make you stop,” he teases. 

The flush rises higher on her face, but she bites her bottom lip and lifts her chin. “I have an entire security team at my disposal, sir. You hold no fear for me,” she retorts lightly. 

His hand slides along the curve of her waist to the small of her back. She feels it through the skirts. “If you say so, Your Highness.”

Mia grins into the bright lights, and his face. He turns her out into a twirl, and the crowd claps. They’ve never seen her dance so well, she thinks. 

Later, she sits alone in her suite; the suite of a queen. Her dress is unlaced at the back, and she’s dismisses her ladies’ maids, too tired for small talk and entertainment. The curl is gone from her hair and she sits on the edge of the bed, quiet. Everything is heavy and thick, and she looks out across the dim room and thinks - tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first day of her life. Again.

It’s so quiet, the knock on her far window by the trellis scares the _shit_ out of her. But it’s only Nicholas, his hair mussed, the grin wide on his face. All the press has been sent off the grounds, and are most likely drinking at parties with the rest of the country, so she feels safe in letting him in. She smacks him repeatedly on the shoulders as he crawls over the ledge and tumbles to the carpeted floor in a mess of legs and arms.

“What is _wrong_ with you?” she hisses, watching as he rights himself to a stand. He’s changed into jeans, his usual leather jacket; he looks incredibly casual and normal, and she’s still adorned and heavy with skirts. 

He shrugs, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets. “You came to me. I thought I should return the favor.”

Mia smoothes her hands over her skirts and sighs. And then, she realizes that yes, she is practically half-naked, and the wide straps of her dress gape over her shoulders, and man the air is cool on her bare back and oh god she isn’t wearing a bra with this dress that’s _right_ – 

“Want some help?” he offers, cocking his head. His eyes are sharp on her. 

“You sure are presumptuous.”

He smirks a little. The dimple in his cheek creases, as the scars along his cheekbones do. She wants to know the stories there; she feels like an open book to him, and yet he is little more than a fact sheet and some strange inner knowledge to her. There are things she knows, from that night under the tree, but he’s still a disjointed puzzle of a man to her. She wants more. 

“Would it help if I had a chicken?”

She laughs and moves into the room, closer to him. “I don’t do poultry in the bedroom.”

“Good to know. See? We’re learning boundaries,” he teases. 

Mia hesitates for a moment, licking her lips. Then, she turns, and sweeps her hair over one shoulder, so it falls over her collarbones, her breast. 

“Undo the rest?” she asks softly over her shoulder, carefully not meeting his eyes. 

His fingertips skate the bared line of her spine. She shivers, and thinks of the archery lesson, the kiss in the gardens, the night under the trees; it’s a fairy tale, but not. Queens don’t have lords in their suites, and they don’t hate them half the time, and they don’t make out in fountains or in closets. 

Well, she’s her own kind of queen, she thinks as the laces fall loose under his fingers, and his mouth ghosts her bare shoulder. 

_I will be good,_ she thinks as his lips trail up the line of her throat. _In all ways_.

“I’ll stop,” he breathes against her skin.

“Did I say anything about stopping?” she asks, voice breathy. 

The dress pulls away from her chest and middle as his hands cover her bare stomach, and she thanks technology and god and whatever else for inlaid corsets as she turns to kiss him, to bite and mark as she feels marked inside. Her hands pull at his jacket, pulling away from his broad shoulders – all she wants is bare skin, the warmth of him, his mouth on hers and everywhere else. Her fingers curl at the hem of his shirt, soft against her fingertips, and she tugs as his hands push at the skirt of her dress. Their arms tangle and she laughs and blushes, taking a step back. 

“There’s a lot of dress here,” she says, a little breathless. Her mouth is wet and warm from his. 

Nicholas smiles slowly, hair mussed, cheeks red. He pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it aside, casual as you please. Mia swallows and steps out of her dress. It lies in a pool of lace and crinoline and silk. Her feet are bare against the carpet, toes curling. She resists the urge to cover her breasts, even as her hair shifts across her bare skin.

“Thigh-highs. Huh,” he murmurs, glancing her over. Her entire body flushes. 

“Well, you know. Tradition is important,” she says, glancing down. They are pale ivory and lacy, scratchy against her thighs. 

He grins, shirtless and tan and very very handsome, and comes closer, his hands on her hips. She tips her head back and kisses him, framing his face in her hands. Her thumbs slide over his cheekbones and she sighs into his mouth as his palms slide over her hips, the lace hem of her panties, thumbing at her hipbone. When he pulls his mouth away he kneels, and she catches her breath hard in her throat. 

It’s something of a blur, the feel of his mouth on her skin, the pluck of his fingers at her thigh-highs, the brush of his hair against her thighs. She’s tired and pitched high from the days, the last month really, and it feels _good_ to let go and shut her eyes, the sheer flush of warmth at her skin, the prickle and slide of sweat at her neck and the curve of her knees. Her fingers twine in his hair and she moans his name, a low soft sound. It sounds small in the wide space of her suite; it sounds private, and theirs alone. 

Later, she watches drowsily as he climbs into the wide canopied bed, naked and softened in the dim light. He kisses her and she can taste herself on his tongue, and it’s a deliciously naughty feeling; she doesn’t think she’ll have many moments like this, and she says so into the soft darkness. 

Nicholas laughs lowly; the sound warms her straight through. “That is decidedly untrue,” he says as he settles onto his back, pulling her over to him. Her thigh drapes across his waist and she curls into him, sated. “We will have plenty of un-royal moments. Don’t you worry.”

“What a wonderful relief,” she drawls. 

His hands slide through her hair gently. “Sleep, Mia. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Again, my relief is palpable,” she murmurs, her eyes falling shut. 

In the morning, she wakes up to sunshine, papers from the Minister of the Interior, and Nicholas, still sleeping. He snores a little, every once in a while. It’s all very comforting, she thinks. A good sign.

Mia lays in bed for a few moments, looks at the tray of coffee and toast at the side of her bed, the files waiting there. She pushes her hair from her face and sits up, the sheets tucked around her. 

It’s tomorrow, and she’s ready. 

*


End file.
